She hates clichés.

No, wait…she hates it when the stooges are right.

Granted, most of the times they know their place, specially Shinji, as he tends to identifies her look as the unspoken order of Shut the hell up you idiot, you're gonna give us away which comes especially handy whenever those other two stooges he so fondly calls "friends" are within the vicinity and start to sprout their "Newlyweds" nonsense.

But it just has turned so clichéd (There's that word again); They are quick to point out their cultural differences, their sleeping arrangements; the fact that thru out the steady years they have lived together (at first due out of necessity, then out of laziness, now…she needs to find a new excuse) and that he has grown a little like her, and she has toned down (In plain speak, she isn't as honest and loud as usual)

So she is the crazy, loudmouthed attention-seeking whore who is the dumb genius! (Because, hello! Graduated with a University degree with a name too far complex for these simpleton by age 14, but still has difficulty with Kanji) She is the extremely wealthy and spoiled brat (Explained by the fact that Western Europeans in Japan are stereotyped to be billionaires and extremely snobby, coupled with that hot red sport roadster she bought with the inheritance money Mama left her)

She is the princess in love with the loser. (Who also happens to be her best friend, at least according to Hikari)

And as it turns out, she is all that and more...

But as she walks back home next to Shinji and he smiles at her after Toji walks off mouthing about the newlyweds again while Hikari twists his ear one more time, she can't help but smile back at him.

Some times being the right cliché is bearable.

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"Are you ready?"

She loves her yellow sundress.

It's a perfectly nice sundress, evoking younger, happy days. A long voyage by sea with the first person she truly felt comfortable with (First crush-turned older brother type) that made a lasting impression on all the people that met her that particular day. Because, if you are a typical hot blooded teenager who just happens to catch a flash of panty from a cute foreigner, that image will be forever etched in your mind (Damn Baka Hentai).

It's a perfectly nice dress; Her first, official adult dress that was not really purchased, but something she found stored away in Mama's room, coupled with a picture of her younger self when she was attending TUB and it was like looking into a picture of herself in a couple of years; the same blue eyes, only this ones looked a dull blue because of the years and the acids corroding the picture; the same red hair, only hers was cut shorter, like a pageboy cut reaching just below her neck, and more of a dark red than her coppery hair.

She was accompanied by a woman of roughly her same age, only she had longer hair the color of chestnut, a gentle smile on her feminine face and with eyes so blue they seemed dark, almost black, in her slightly slanted but big, soulful eyes. (She always wondered who she was: an old friend of mama? Someone she could have called aunt in some other time?)

"Yeah, let me just tie it down right."

And mama was wearing that same dress in that picture, smiling at the camera with that dazzling bright smile of hers.

"I-I really like that dress, Asuka."

The same smile she used to have before life took it all away.

She smiles softly. "Yeah." she whispers. "So do I."

It's a beautiful dress: the same dress she wore when he asked her on their first "official" date, the same dress she wore on various other anniversaries, just like today.

"This better be a nice restaurant, Third." She says with a smile, taking the bite out of the comment.

He fingers the small velvet box nervously chuckling. "I really hope you like it."

And, unbeknownst to her, it's the dress she will wear when he pops the big question to her.

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AN: ties in to the "Hate" part of Session the 22nd.